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by Maria Gracia
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« September 2007 | Main | November 2007 »

October 22, 2007

Couple Make Burglar Clean Up at Gunpoint

One of our faithful readers, Julie Palnau, graciously shared this story she recently came across. While it was certainly upsetting to hear this family's home was broken into, I still appreciated the fact that the mess needed to be cleaned up, and who better to do it than the one who made the mess.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A burglar in Montgomery chose the wrong family to mess with, literally. Adrian and Tiffany McKinnon returned home on Tuesday after a week away to find that thieves had emptied almost everything the family of five owned, Tiffany McKinnon said through tears.

"Tears just rolled down my face as I walked in and saw everything gone and piles of trash all over my home," she said.

Adrian McKinnon sent his wife to see her sister while he inspected the piles left behind. As he walked back into the sunroom, a man walked through the back door straight into him, Tiffany McKinnon told the Montgomery Advertiser in a story Thursday.

"My husband Adrian caught the thief red-handed in our home," she said. "And what is even crazier, the man even had my husband's hat sitting right on his head."

Adrian McKinnon held the suspect, 33-year-old Tajuan Bullock, at gunpoint and told him to sit on the floor until he decided what to do.

"We made this man clean up all the mess he made, piles of stuff, he had thrown out of my drawers and cabinets onto the floor," Tiffany McKinnon said.

When police arrived, Bullock complained about being forced to clean the home at gunpoint.

"This man had the nerve to raise sand about us making him clean up the mess he made in my house," she said. "The police officer laughed at him when he complained and said anybody else would have shot him dead."

Capt. Huey Thornton, a police spokesman, said police arrested Bullock at 2 p.m. Tuesday on burglary and theft charges. He was being held in the Montgomery County Detention Facility on a $30,000 bond.

"The victims were lucky in this case to be able to catch the suspect in the act and hold him until police arrived," Thornton said.

Story source: Associated Press and Comcast

Maria Gracia

October 16, 2007

Organizing My Digital Media Player

I received a Zune Digital Media Player for my birthday months ago, and I've finally gotten around to organizing all of my music.

* I ripped all of my favorite CDs, eliminating the songs I really don't like.

* I purchased a bunch of current songs I enjoy and got those on my player. I also keep an Excel file of the songs I've purchased for future reference.

* I created Playlists, which are basically custom indexes of songs that play in a certain order. I have one for Current Favorites, another for Country, a third for Rock, a forth for Classical, etc., plus one entitled 'Amanda' for my daughter's favorite songs.

It took me close to 8 hours total to do all of this, but it was time well spent. Now, I just pop my Zune into my portable audio system (Altec Lansing) and I can listen to whatever I want, whenever I want. Wow, this is a huge step for music enjoyment!

P.S. By the way, unrelated but worthwhile to share is this very cool video on You Tube entitled The Treadmill Dance. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeeR4Vnvs8U

Maria Gracia

October 09, 2007

10,000 steps a day?

I just purchased a new pedometer that I've been wearing from the time I get dressed in the morning, to the time I put on my pjs. It's an Omron model HJ-105--not super fancy or anything, but gives me the number of steps I walk in a day, calories consumed and other useful information to let me know if I've been fairly active each day, or rather, a couch potato.

The 10,000 steps a day thing has been the standard universal goal for the past few years in the media. Wow, that's a lot of walking. Yesterday, I walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes, and walked about another 20 minutes after dinner--and still only logged about 4,000 steps.

Today, I seem to be doing better. In the process of getting my daughter ready for school, and getting her there, I've already logged over 1,000 steps and it's only 9:18AM. We'll see what I end up with later.

Anyway, this little gadget is a great, passive way to let me know how I'm doing each day, and a gentle reminder to exercise a bit more after dinner if the numbers reveal that I should.

Maria Gracia

October 01, 2007

Think Productivity--AND Enjoyment

One of the ways I get through my day and get tons of stuff done is by doing little things I really enjoy in between my tasks.

Let's take this past Monday, for example. I woke up at 7:00am, showered and dressed, and got my daughter, Amanda, ready for the day.

Instead of going right to work, I sat down at the kitchen table with my husband and my daughter and we all enjoyed breakfast together--scrambled eggs, toast and fruit. I even managed to do a crossword puzzle.

Then, I went to work, getting my newsletter and web site updated for this coming Sunday. My 3-year old played quietly at this time, right by my side.

That took me to around 11:00am, at which time I drove my daughter to her music class. While there, I was able to enjoy some great conversation with a few of the other moms while the kids were in class.

After class, I took my daughter out for a quick lunch, picked up a few items at the grocery store, and then back home to work at about 2:00P. Amanda's friend came over to play.

I went through all of my email messages, responding to each one that was in my inbox, deleting those I did not need and moving those I did need into email folders.

Afterwards, I enjoyed some sugar snap peas with bacon dip, while reading a chapter of the book I'm currently reading (Night by Elie Wiesel--it's an amazing book by the way!).

That took me to about 3:00PM, at which time I worked on a writing project I'm in the middle of. At 4:00P, I did a few media interviews, that ended at about 4:45P.

I turned off my computer, did a quick office clean up, and then started some laundry. Then, dinner. I made baked haddock, red potatoes and green beans. While dinner was cooking, I did some quick cleaning around the house. We started eating dinner around 5:45 or so and cleaned up directly afterwards.

Joe and I then took Amanda to the park for awhile. When we returned, we played some games with her. Then it was bathtime and bedtime.

Once Amanda was asleep, I did a little bit of scrapbooking and then watched some TV with Joe before going to bed.

In summary, I managed to:

WORK
1. Update next week's newsletter and web site
2. Respond to, file and/or delete all my email messages
3. Finish a nice chunk of my writing project
4. Do two media interviews

HOUSE
1. Get myself, and my daughter, ready for the day
2. Cook
3. Clean
4. Do Laundry
5. Get my daughter bathed and ready for bed

FUN
1. Eat 3 square meals, with a snack in between.
2. Spend quality time with my husband and Amanda.
3. Talk with my friends.
4. Do a crossword puzzle.
5. Read some of my book.
6. Scrapbook.
7. Watch TV.

And that's only one day of my 5 day workweek! I know once I look back at the end of the week, I will be looking back at a very productive week--but also one in which I managed to truly enjoy myself each day.

Don't forget about enjoying yourself each day. You can still get stuff done, but it will be so much better if you can also say you did a bunch of nice things for yourself and your family too!

Maria Gracia

Otters Holding Hands

Last weekend, we took a drive to the Milwaukee Zoo. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed checking out all the animals and just walking around the grounds. Our only disappointment was that we wanted to show our daughter, Amanda, the otters. Unfortunately, they weren't on display at the time we were there.

So, when we got home, we went onto You Tube to see if we could find an otter video to show her, and came across this one entitled 'Otters Holding Hands':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUk3T2Kfno

P.S. After some research, we determined that this phenomenon was actually a common survival instinct, but I still like to believe it was true love. Enjoy!

Maria Gracia
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